French imams say they are ready to help counter Muslim extremism

Excerpt:

Thirty imams in France signed an open letter calling on their colleagues to help counter Muslim extremism.

The letter, which appeared Tuesday in the daily LeMonde, expressed "compassion for all our fellow citizens who have been directly or indirectly affected by terrorism and by the anti-Semitic crimes that have blindly struck our country."

It added that the imams are "suffering from the confiscation of our religion by criminals."

The letter was in response to a manifesto published on Sunday in LeParisien, the largest circulation newspaper in France, signed by 300 politicians, intellectuals and artists denouncing the "new anti-Semitism in France" driven by radical Islamists in the country.